Articles Tagged with“Florida texting law”

A new study revealed that 92% of motorists use their phone while operating their vehicle. That reality must sink in. Whether you are in traffic, stopped at a red light, making 60mph on the highway, a pedestrian walking across an intersection, a bicyclist on a Sunday morning run, or in an Uber, understand that you are simply 100% at risk of injury. More and more, motorists see being in a moving car as being in a moving elevator: an opportunity to check emails, respond to texts, send a snap, read a story on Facebook, take a selfie to post on Instagram. The obvious difference is one is potentially deadly. This reality will remain true until we all operate self-driving vehicles.

For the last time, Floridians are undeniably on notice: Florida is the second-worst state for distracted driving. The Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles’ statistics show that a distracted driving-related accident will occur every 10-12 minutes in Florida. That adds up to almost 50,000 crashes involving distracted-driving, and the consequences are life-altering, causing 3,500 catastrophic injuries and 233 deaths in 2016.

On October 1, 2013, the first law banning texting while driving comes into effect in the State of Florida. This law is a half step in the right direction, but a half step nevertheless.

The Florida legislator has advocated for a ban on cell phone use while driving for several years. The best compromise Tallahassee was able to reach has essentially pulled the teeth of the new law. We described in detail the shortcomings of the new piece of legislation in our previous articles on the topic: